Hans Zimmer Dropped an Intense Track From the ‘Dunkirk’ Score, and It’s Really Good

Hans Zimmer has become kind of the rockstar of movie soundtracks (I mean, he did literally play a set at Coachella this year). Zimmer’s been scoring Christopher Nolan’s movies ever since Batman Begins, so it’s no surprise that he’s back for Nolan’s World War II thriller Dunkirk, and man, is he back. WaterTower Music just released the fourth track off the score, titled “Supermarine,” and it’s intense.

The title is a reference to the Supermarine Spitfire, the primary fighter plane used by the British Allied forces during WWII, and which we see a few shots of in the trailer — they’re those three planes with the circular marks on their wings flying in formation right there at the end after a soldier shouts, “Where’s the bloody Air Force??” Tom Hardy is one of the POV characters in the movie, playing a British RAF fighter pilot tasked with engaging the German planes that are trying to shoot escaping Allied soldiers from above.

This track is everything I love about Hans Zimmer’s scores: He likes to find a simple theme and stick with it, building it up until either the song or your ears reaches a breaking point. And there are so many sound details in this too: the tense ticking clock throughout, the propeller underneath that, the air raid siren screech. It sounds very Dark Knight-y, but also even darker than that — which works with how Nolan describes this movie as more of an intense thriller than a war film. Watching a dogfight play out as this pulsates in the background is going to be exhilarating.

Dunkirk’s soundtrack will be available July 21 on CD and digital formats, and on vinyl October 13. Dunkirk opens in theaters July 21.